
Fostering School-Wide Responsive Practices
It is vital for the principal to foster a school-wide, student-centered approach to education and restorative justice to create a high-performing school. By actively strengthening the systems, practices, and initiatives to encourage all students to develop their academic, behavioral, social, and emotional skills, the principal can cultivate learning environments where teachers have the knowledge and skills to respond to student strengths and needs proactively. In addition, the principal ensures and monitors the success and well-being of each student by developing and supervising the individuals, systems, and processes that directly impact them. Finally, the principal collaborates to align the restorative justice approach to student management, operational plan, and curriculum and instruction systems. They can make decisions based on district policies and education laws from this alignment. Thus the principal creates and sustains a high-performing school and responsive culture.
To encourage all students' success and well-being, the principal cultivates and supervises academic and behavioral systems to expand students' skills and knowledge. These systems also provide teachers and staff members with the ability to proactively respond to student strengths and needs. To effectively employ a school-wide responsive learning environment, the principal collaboratively engages all stakeholders in effectively using data to improve and align their practices with the mission and vision statements. They ensure teachers create a learning environment where students feel appreciated, safe, and challenged. By offering professional development that focuses on student choice, guided discovery, and problem-solving classroom practices, the principal allows teachers to develop skills and knowledge to support each student. They encourage teachers to intrinsically motivate students to work energetically and positively express themselves throughout various classroom settings by providing recognition instead of rewards.
Another example is when a teacher verbally expresses their appreciation for their behavior and why it was essential. When students choose to participate in off-task behaviors, teachers are encouraged to employ various practices adapted from Behavioral Positive Behavior Supports, PBIS framework to address the concern through modeling, structured reflection, and visual cues. These are just a few systems that the principal implements.
The principal further encourages student development by employing social, emotional, and cultural support systems that proactively respond to student strengths and needs. To effectively use a school-wide responsive learning environment, the principal must efficiently provide time, budget, physical space, and personnel resources to support the social-emotional support for students. The principal collaborates with the district offices to allocate funds and hire Social Workers, Guidance Counselors, and Psychologists needed based on various forms of student data. They support these new positions by ensuring physical office space, access to technology devices, and required supplies by extending this collaboration with the appropriate district directors. Finally, the principal creates cultural bridges between the community and the school by inviting guest speakers, including community members in committees, conducting community-wide surveys, and actively using digital and physical forms of communication. Thus, the principal can encourage all students' success and well-being by developing and supervising academic, behavioral, social, emotional, and cultural support systems
The principal ensures and monitors the success and well-being of each student by developing and supervising the individuals, systems, and processes that directly impact students. They collaborate with the curriculum director and lead teachers to ensure each curriculum is vertically aligned across grade levels and horizontally aligned across different classrooms by addressing state standards, developing a scope and sequence, and utilizing lesson planning. Students complete various assessments to demonstrate the strengths and opportunities for improvement in the curriculum. In addition, these assessments provide data for the principal to confirm the most qualified employees are in the most suitable position that takes the most advantage of their certifications, skills, attitudes, and knowledge. This data and classroom observations influence the professional development opportunities available for each staff member. When the building advisory committee examines data, they may suggest alteration or adoption of procedures that more effectively promote the success and well-being of each student. The committee and principal collaborate with the technology director to enhance learning experiences by providing students with devices, introducing Newline-Boards, and providing additional wifi access points. The principal employs a simple, user-friendly software that tracks student attendance, performance, and assessment scores. This software must also provide teachers and staff the ability to communicate an academic, behavioral, social, and emotional decline in a student and who on staff is taking what actions to address it. By observing data in this software, the principal ensures and monitors each student's success and well-being.Â
The principal’s operational plan is structured to create a high-performing school and responsive culture. For example, to create a more inclusive school, the principal and their committee adjust teachers and paraprofessional schedules and assignments to support a co-teaching model. In addition, they use the school calendar, faculty meetings, and other reasonable times in agreement with the contact to plan for and provide professional development. While observations and classroom visits provide the principal with a wealth of information about students, they deepen their understanding through home visits, formal and informal meetings with stakeholders, and volunteering for class coverage. Finally, the principal uses social media, phone calls, weekly newsletters, and the district website to communicate with all stakeholders.
The principal aligns curriculum and instruction systems with a restorative justice approach to student management to foster a school-wide responsive culture. They encourage teachers to develop lessons that focus on relationships, respect, responsibility, repairs, and reintegration. For instance, a ninth-grade social studies teacher asks students to examine conflicts and discuss how they may evolve from minor situations to severe ones depending on different responses. Other examples include the eighth-grade English teacher developing a unit that examines Jewell Parker Rhodes's Ghost Boys or when a second-grade elementary teacher develops a set of lessons where students share their favorite memories. They encourage teachers to use a restorative justice approach to their practices. This approach varies from earning students’ respect by modeling it, developing engaging lessons where students are intrinsically motivated to participate, and verbally validating positive student behavior. The principal can foster a school-wide responsive culture by aligning the curriculum and instruction systems with a restorative justice approach to student management.
The principal creates and sustains a high-performing, responsive school culture by aligning and making decisions based on policies and education law. As restorative justice is a part of the school's mission statement and the approach they employ for student management, the principals would work towards ensuring the policies and procedures reflect this. For instance, if a student uses cannabis, the policy seeks for the student to actively participate in a rehab program instead of implementing an out-of-school suspension. The principal may also advocate alternative policies to their current "zero-tolerance" policy, leading to higher student suspension or exclusion rates, a disproportionate representation of minority students, no educational benefit, and a building culture based on fear. Also, when incorporating new technology or devices, the principal needs to integrate new policies, implement safety management software known as Gaggle, and communicate with parents. In addition, various federal and state laws and initiatives influence the principal's timely action and decisions. When the principal partners with the local BOCES for services, they take advantage of New York State Law Article 40, Section 1950. When they collaborate with the nurse to create a budget for supplies needed, they are satisfying the requirements of New York State Education Law Article 19 and Commissioner's Regulations CR 136.1 to 136.8. Finally, the principal recruits, retain, supports, and promotes quality faculty and staff members compliant with regulatory and contractual expectations, educational policies, laws, and APPR expectations.
The principal must create and sustain a high-performing school and responsive culture. They make decisions based on district policies and education laws from this alignment. They collaborate to align the restorative justice approach to student management, operational plan, and curriculum and instruction systems. The principal ensures and monitors the success and well-being of each student by developing and supervising the individuals, systems, and processes that directly impact them. Finally, they encourage all students to develop their academic, behavioral, social, and emotional skills by cultivating learning environments where teachers have the knowledge and skills to proactively respond to student strengths and needs. It is vital for the principal to foster a school-wide, student-centered approach to education and restorative justice to create a high-performing school.Â
